A Greenwood woman who hired a teenager to kill her estranged husband was convicted and sentenced Thursday in the death of another man the teen mistook for her husband.

Karlita Desean Phillips, 41, was found guilty of accessory before the fact of murder and soliciting a minor to commit a felony. The jury deliberated for just over two hours before returning the guilty verdicts.

Advertisement

Related Content

Tavirous Settles, who was 16 at the time of the shooting in December 2013, testified that he and Karlita Phillips were involved in a sexual relationship and that she agreed to pay him $13,000 to kill her estranged husband, Dale Phillips Jr.

Settles testified that Karlita Phillips drove him to the Abbeville where he shot and killed 31-year-old Jamil Omar Phillips. He was found shot to death on the porch of his parents’ home on Old Douglas Mill Road.

Prosecutors said Karlita Phillips was motivated by hatred for her estranged husband and money. Her estranged husband had a life insurance policy through his employer that would have paid her $500,000 in the event of his death.

They said she also took out a $25,000 life insurance policy on her estranged husband through her employer several months after the two had separated and several months before Jamil Phillips was mistakenly killed.

Karlita Phillips was sentenced to life in prison.

Settles is awaiting trial on charges of murder in Jamil Phillps’ death.

Settles was sentenced to 45 years in prison earlier this year after being found guilty of the 2013 death a 26-year-old man in Greenwood County.

“No family should have to endure what the Phillips family has had to endure,” Eighth Circuit Solicitor David Stumbo said. “They have not been able to wake up from this nightmare and they still miss Jamil tremendously.

“Hopefully, this verdict will give them some closure and allow them to begin the healing process. I also hope it sends a clear message horrific, premeditated acts of murder will not be tolerated on the streets of Abbeville County or anywhere else in the Eighth Circuit.”